Wiican

Last week I got surprised by a Wiican user who is using it for controlling MOC (Music on Console). Kinda geek mediacenter! isn’t? I love it If you’ve curious: a video for seeing Wiican over MOC in action has been recorded by Oscar, click on the image on the right. Oscar has been so nice to answer some questions about how has used Wiican for this proposes, so let’s start!

Wiican: Which have been basically the steps you have taken to set
the Wiimote for handling with MOC? How about the difficulties?

Oscar: The basic step was setting a custom mapping. Easy! (the app is very focused on keeping it simple). The hardest, if you can say (at first I did’nt realized) was to change the permissions of the folder where the custom mappings are kept. Then everything went smoothly.

W: What do you like best of Wiican? And the least? What would you change?

O: What I like about Wiican undoubtedly is the ability to create your own mappings. That gets you to use the wiimote for whatever you have in mind (you can control the wii guitar to play frets on fire!). It could be used, for example, to control an RSS reader like Google Reader, scrolling, bookmark, unread, etc. A great tool, no doubt.

O: What I really liked least, I would say: its limitation to Linux environments. If there were a Windows version, I don’t know if I would use it, though, but some friends got amazing after seeing it in action. They would use it but the Linux world is too far away, even it is relatively easy to use the desktops. I would not change anything currently in the program. It starts quickly and without error, and connects instantly with the Wiimote!
W: Did you try any other software to manage MOC with the Wiimote?

O: No, actually I do not know about more programs to use wiimote in Linux. I would still using Wiican even if I found another one, because it has everything I need: simple, light and effective!
W: Finally which version of Wiican you are using and which desktop environment?

O: I use it on a clean install of Ubuntu 12.04, with Unity 5.0. Previously I’ve also used it with Ubuntu 10.10 and Gnome, which also worked perfectly.

If you want to use Wiican with MOC, just create a new mapping from the mapping editor dialog and paste this code:

#A: Choose element
#B: Play/Pause
#Up/Down: Navigate through elements
#Left/Right: Rewind/Forward
#Plus/Minus: Up/Down Volume
#Home: Switch Browser/Playlist
#1: Add file to playlist
#2: Remove file from playlist
 
Wiimote.A	= KEY_ENTER
Wiimote.B	= KEY_P
Wiimote.Up	= KEY_UP
Wiimote.Down	= KEY_DOWN
Wiimote.Left	= KEY_LEFT
Wiimote.Right	= KEY_RIGHT
Wiimote.Minus	= KEY_COMMA
Wiimote.Plus	= KEY_DOT
Wiimote.Home	= KEY_TAB
Wiimote.1	= KEY_A
Wiimote.2	= KEY_

Autostart mapping feature

Finally I found some time for fixing some bugs and coding a new feature: now the user can mark a mapping for being autostarted at Wiican launching. It was reported as wishlist at #502292 and it turns Wiican as a partner for wiimote-controlled media centers or HTPCs.

The way to proceed is quite simple:

• Use the “Autostart” button at the mapping manager dialog for marking a mapping to be autostarted.
• Add Wiican as startup program: i.e. using gnome-session-properties or by copying wiican.desktop file to your ~/.local/share/applications directory

Download the tarball here:
https://launchpad.net/wiican/0.3/0.3.4

Using gnome-session-properties to add Wiican as a startup app

Changelog:

• New Feature: Autostart wiican running a default mapping (Closes: #502292 and #563989)

• Improved tray icon: using appindicator or gtkstatusicon whether Unity is the desktop in use or not

• Updated link cwiid help links on mapping editor (Closes: #908288)

• Updated translations and new greek (el) translation

• GUI migrated to GTK+3.0

I’m really happy to see Wiican users community is still growing: 5349 download hits at Lauchpad download area and 700 installations registered by PopCon. Migrating Wiican to PyGI and GSettings will be the next steps and a new branch has been published for that.

GetDeb is an unofficial project with the mission to provide the latest open source and freeware applications for the current Ubuntu Linux release.

People from getdeb.net did it again! Now wiican 0.3.3 it’s packaged for Ubuntu 11.04 (codename natty narwhal) and downloadable via getdeb software portal.

Thanks Christoph Korn and the getdeb.net team!

Wiican running on Gnome3

A new cycle of wiican development has been finished, this time a minor release for getting better compatibility with Gnome3 and Unity desktops:

• Tray icon migrated to AppIndicator for better working on Unity desktop
• Merged all options into one single menu
• New fancy symbolic high-contrast icons
• ‘Show mapping manager on startup‘ option added
• i18n impulse! supporting chinese, asturiano, estonian …

Download the tarball here:

http://launchpad.net/wiican/0.3/0.3.3/+download/wiican-0.3.3.tar.gz

New symbolic icons set

Well, it was a long time since last release and a pity not dedicating so much time for wiican, even though there was a clear roadmap which had created some expectations. The point is, the new arrival of modern desktops as Gnome3/Gnome-shell and Unity requiered a wiican update:

• Gtk StatusIcon won’t work anymore on Unity: a replacement with appindicator was almost mandatory
• Single menu tray apps using symbolic icons is the standard practice nowadays

Fortunately Daniel Planas, Wiican’s icon designer, has done a good job with Wiican symbolic icons. Dani also designs for the Ayatana project so he knows about how to design symbolic icons, even Ubuntu’s BDFL congrats him on his windicator mockup work!

Traditional Chinese i18n

Another great surprise is the activity on Wiican’s launchpad site. Almost 1000 downloads of 0.3.2, and 3345 downloads counting every single version downloads.

It has been really funny for me to see that Wiican has been translated into Traditional Chinese too. Thanks to all translators!

Following the roadmap next steps will be focused on porting Wiican to pygi/gsettings and starting with a web repository of mappings. Stay tunned!

Mapping manager new look&feel

Let me introduce you, first, what wiican-0.3.2 offers:

• HAL replaced with udev, for detect wiimote connection state.
• New look&feel for the mapping manager.
• Drag’n'Drop for ordering mappings on mapping manager.
• Improved mapping editor via GTKSourceView: line numbers, better syntax highlighting, etc.
• New translations added, others updated.

Where can you download a source tarball:

http://launchpad.net/wiican/0.3/0.3.2/+download/wiican-0.3.2.tar.gz

And now my memory dump:

It has been a long time deciding to launch a release with the last changes. As I told in my previous post, the “halsectomy” was done, replacing with udev, and that scared me then: I did know almost nothing about programming with udev.

It’s a good thing I started udev-discover, an udev browser ‘ala’ gnome-device-manager was for HAL, with some nice features. Coding udev-discover (I hope to release a 0.1 soon) i’ve learned python-gudev enough for being sure the wiican “halsectomy” was done the right way.

For wiican, this means a step further for being more GNOME3 compliant.

It’s well known HAL, the hardware abstraction layer for Unix-like systems, it’s today deprecated. GNU/Linux distros and desktops have all planed to remove HAL as dependency step by step. HAL deprecation it’s also on the Wiican Roadmap.

When David Zeuthen himself, HAL developer, announced the aim for replace HAL with udev there where amounts of small talks about how to port every single application that relies on HAL. But things appears to go on rather well and, in the case of python apps, the python gudev bindings can do the work!

Here’s a simple prototype:

WIIMOTE = '"Nintendo Wiimote"'
 
def check_wiimote_connection(action, device):
    if device.get_property('NAME') == WIIMOTE:
        if action == 'add':
            print 'New wiimote connection detected at', device.get_sysfs_path()
        elif action == 'remove':
            print 'Wiimote disconnected', device.get_sysfs_path()
 
def on_uevent(client, action, device):
    check_wiimote_connection(action, device)
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    import gudev
    import glib
 
    client = gudev.Client(['input'])
 
    for device in client.query_by_subsystem('input'):
        check_wiimote_connection('add', device)
 
    client.connect("uevent", on_uevent)
    glib.MainLoop().run()

I’m taking care of Wiican ‘HALsectomy’ on a separated branch. I choosed to follow the Arista Transcoder project pretty implementation which hides all gudev logic under a gobject subclass, how smart!

Ubuntu User article

One moth ago since i had got a big surprise: Ubuntu User magazine published a two full-page article about 0.2.x series Wiican.

It was at 2010-6 issue, titled ”Issue 6: Expert Security“, and even Wiican appears at the editorial note:

“Wiican: The Wiimote can act as a mouse substitute or a presentation remote.”

Not bad but the wiican-team expects to take the project a bit further

I really thank the Ubuntu User magazine for being the first written press to talk about Wiican, and for being so nice to send me the printed number.

I’m happy to announce Wiican it’s moving infraestructure from Launchpad to Gnome!

This is the first evidence of Wiican approximation to the Gnome community. With this change I hope to expand the number of users and developers by listening how to improve the software the Gnome way … maybe some day i’ll propose it as gnome official module.

By now, there’s a new mailing list open for users and developers, the Launchpad bugtrack will soon be migrated to bugzilla.gnome.org and the master code branch is now hosted at gnome.git.org.

I want to thank Juanje Ojeda, Alejandro Leiva and Joanmarie Diggs, the Gnome people who encouraged me to do the change: there’s a brand-gnome-newborn!

GetDeb is an unofficial project with the mission to provide the latest open source and freeware applications for the current Ubuntu Linux release.

People from getdeb.net did the work! Now wiican 0.3.0 it’s packaged for Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid lynx) and downloadable via getdeb software portal.

The first package 0.3.0-1~getdeb1 contained small bugs and some people report them on launchpad. It’s great the getdeb wiican packaging it’s followed by getdeb team as a launchpad bug too, so was easy for users to report the bugs themselves. Today a 0.3.0-1~getdeb2 version has been released.

Thanks Christoph Korn and the getdeb.net team!

First of 0.3.x Wiican series released!

This release it’s focused on making easy for users to build and share mappings across network and provide developers a way to explore and manage the wiimote connection status through a d-bus interface.

Download Wiican 0.3.0

The d-bus api isn’t documented yet but i think it’s easy enough to understand. Next steps will include to fully document it and write some specs about how to evolve it in something really useful for developers so maybe some of them will include wiimote support by default in their apps, by using wiican d-bus api.

Wiican mapping packages files are in the same situation. Althought the wiican mapping editor dialog provides a great way to develop mappings, with on-the-fly syntax error highlightning and mapping validator at runtime, there is a great feature you need to set by hand in the info.desktop file: the translations. A spec about info.desktop file and how to evolve it (i.e. lp:) will make easier for mapping workers to create and share new mappings.

I hope you enjoy Wiican 0.3.0. Please submit any bugs or feature requests at Launchpad wiican bugs site!

Changelog:

DBus API

• Wiican DBus service with an API to explore and manage wiimote connection status
• Rebuilded the wminput launching library with GObject

Mapping manager

• New mapping info file definition based on xdg DesktopFiles (translations supported)
• Mappings could be imported and exported as Wiican Mapping Package (.wii files)
• Mimetype for .wii wiican mapping package files: cute icon and mapping editor dialog launched if a package is opened
• Smart mapping editor dialog: syntax validation and on-the-fly mapping launching

General:

• Preferences stored in gconf
• A set of wii device/status icons provided for the gtk icon theme sets
  • A set of mappings provided for:
  • Using nunchuk as mouse
  • Wiimote + nunchuk as gamepad
  • Classic controller as gamepad
  • Frets of Fire with wii guitar